Events Calendar

Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series

Speaker: Boris Defourny, Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA

Talk Title: Optimal Learning for a Class of Structured Problems

Abstract: While several methods exist to formulate decision making problems under uncertainty, sometimes we also have the opportunity to make experiments to make more informed decisions. For instance, consider a market survey that tries to identify consumers’ preferences prior to launching a new product. Optimal learning roughly refers to the task of selecting the best experiments to carry out, dynamically as we collect more information. Optimal learning comes in several flavors, depending on the experiments we can make and the model that produces the final decision we implement given the information collected. In this talk, we focus on certain classes of optimal learning problems and approximate solution approaches. We adopt a Bayesian perspective to model the information dynamics, and we develop methods adapted to special structures of interest in optimal learning. This work is motivated in part by the question of valuing information for a risk-averse decision maker.


Biography: Boris Defourny is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Lehigh University. His research interests are in the broad areas of stochastic optimization and machine learning, with a focus on energy systems analysis, electricity markets, and more generally, valuation of interconnected assets. Boris Defourny obtained his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Liege, in Belgium, and then worked as an associate professional specialist in the Operations Research and Financial Engineering department at Princeton University, prior to joining Lehigh in 2013.

More Information: Seminar-Defourny.docx

Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Georgia Lum